


A wealth of kisses

by evakuality



Category: Druck | SKAM (Germany)
Genre: Boys Kissing, Fluff, Kissing, M/M, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-05
Updated: 2020-07-26
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:01:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25086559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/evakuality/pseuds/evakuality
Summary: From a series of tumblr prompts I received from a list of kissing prompts.    Life for Matteo and David through the lens of their kisses.  A study of kisses, if you will.More to come as they get written.  All chapters are oneshots in their own right but all should be able to work to show varied facets of the way they are together.
Relationships: Matteo Florenzi/David Schreibner
Comments: 35
Kudos: 100





	1. Cold fingers

It’s one of those winter days that seem to last forever. It’s dark before David leaves his home in the morning and dark before he gets back in the evening. Cold, dark dampness clings to everything and a persistent drizzle hangs in the air as David walks home. He’d forgotten his gloves and scarf this morning because it hadn’t seemed cold enough, but he’s regretting it now. His hands are freezing, and no amount of blowing on them is helping to warm them up.

He’s been studying late at the library and he’s looking forward to coming home to Matteo, to his quick smile and his warm hugs. Matteo’s hugs are always so good, firm and solid, lasting just long enough and making David feel loved and needed. Today, the idea of that warm embrace takes on an added importance; he’s cold and he needs his boyfriend.

Matteo always finishes before David and gets home first, making sure the place is toasty and there’s some sort of food warming in the oven when David finally stumbles in the door. So when David pushes open the door to their home and finds it cold and empty he’s disappointed. All hopes of a cuddly boyfriend, a warm home and a long hug dissipate into the chill that remains stubbornly even after David flicks on their heater and tries to warm his hands against it. They remain chilled, refusing to warm at all.

He’s still stewing in his own moroseness when the door slams open and Matteo breezes into the room. He’s bright and glowing, his eyes lit up and a beautiful rosy flush over his cheeks. David can’t even bring himself to maintain his grumpiness in the face of Matteo’s glittering presence, even his cold fingers losing the power to upset him in the face of Matteo and his bright presence.

Matteo lights up when he spots David, and he drops the bags he’s been carrying onto the floor and shucks out of his coat, gloves and scarf, hanging them carefully on the hooks by the door before turning back to look at David. He tilts his head sideways, the only warning David has before his boyfriend launches himself in his direction and flings himself into David’s arms.

The hug is exactly as warm and comforting as David had imagined on his long, cold walk home, and he curls his arms around Matteo as tightly as he can, trying to draw as much warmth into his own body as possible. Matteo laughs, kisses the spot where his shoulder meets his neck and pulls back so they can look into each other’s eyes. This is the part of the day that David cherishes the most.

It’s breathtaking, even all these months later, and David wonders if he’ll ever get over having Matteo here with him like this. In a space they both call home, this is more normal than not but it still makes David a little giddy and a little dizzy.

Matteo grins at him, looking a little giddy himself, then presses forward to kiss David. His lips are cool against David’s but they warm quickly as the kiss deepens. David sucks in a breath before diving in again, his fingers tangling in the wisps of Matteo's hair. He’s let it grow out enough that it goes everywhere and he can’t contain it, and it constantly looks messed up and wild. But it’s something David will never bug him about because the feel of it between his fingers is so nice and he’s selfish enough not to want to give up the way that feels.

They stay locked like that for a few moments, deeper kisses slipping into small pecks that whisper over lips, a welcoming, familiar buzz that settles rather than inflames. Suddenly wanting to watch Matteo react, and with a cheeky desire to share the cold he’s been feeling, David slips his fingers in under Matteo's shirt. His fingers are still chilled, not warmed yet from the heating in the room or the proximity of Matteo’s body, and they’re cool enough to make him finch away and gasp out of the kisses.

“You absolute ass,” he says, squirming away from the touch and batting at David’s hands. His own are warm where they touch David's and the way they feel as they brush against him warms him.

David laughs and presses his fingers more firmly into Matteo’s skin, wants to watch him squirm more. “You love it,” he says.even as Matteo squawks harder as he tries to wriggle away. David holds him more tightly, his fingers finally warming and Matteo finally stilling in his arms.

“I guess I can put up with it,” Matteo says seriously as he kisses David again, but the twinkle in his eye belies his tone. “You’re not the greatest at pranks so I’ll give you this one.”

David rolls his eyes, moving into their usual banter easily. “And you’re the prank master?” 

“Obviously. Have you seen my collated ‘best of’ prank collection? That’s all the proof-”

Laughing, David cuts him off with another kiss. Matteo melts into it, his body going pliant against David’s as he relaxes into it. Cold fingers or not, this is all he needs. The room is warming up, Matteo is here with him now, and David is content. All his earlier irritated feelings have gone, drowned in laughter and warmth, lost in the blue of Matteo’s eyes as he laughs and presses closer again.


	2. Morning kisses

Mornings are evil, David thinks sleepily as he wakes early one warm Saturday morning. They come around far too early every single day and force him to get up and face the world. They come tied up with cold feet and breath ghosting into the cold of the pre-dawn. Or they come with syrupy heat even before the sun’s fully risen. Basically, they come with far too many negatives.

Early is somewhat subjective, of course. There are strange people out there who would even consider this time kind of late. But for David, it’s early. Dawn is barely making its presence felt around the edges of the curtains, grey fingers peeking into the room. Matteo is soft and pliant in his arms, his breathing still even and regular as he sleeps on. 

Normally, David would probably get up, resigned to a whole day filled with too many coffees after too little sleep. He’s never been good at falling back to sleep when he wakes at times like this, and always resigns himself to either staring in irritation at the ceiling as he tries to sleep again or to an early run to try to shake out some of the cobwebs in his head coupled with said copious amounts of caffeine. But he’s warm here, and David doesn’t want to disturb Matteo as he sleeps. 

Watching Matteo’s steady breathing in the soft grey light is fascinating anyway. His face is relaxed and he looks young, reminding David of the way he’d been after their first night together. Then he’d been just as soft, just as relaxed, and it hadn’t really hit David just how unusual that is for Matteo, not that day anyway. Too often in the day, Matteo holds his jaw rigid, making him look like he’s filled with hard angles and sharp edges and several years older than his genuine age. 

That had certainly been the Matteo David had seen most often during the early days of their acquaintance and there are still traces of it when he’s stressed or anxious. But in this light, with his lips open and his face soft all of that falls away. Just as it had fallen away on that seemingly long ago day when David had woken to a sleepy Matteo snuggled against him and had no desire to move and disturb him. He feels the same way again today; in his sleep he looks so peaceful that it would almost feel like a crime to shatter it and wake him. 

The thing about this morning that is actually not evil in any way at all is that somehow the steady rise and fall of Matteo's chest, the soft murmur of his breath over David’s skin, and the warm, heavy weight of his body against David's all combine to send him back into a soporific state. He drifts, not quite asleep but not awake either, floating in and out of awareness of the world around him. He can hear the chatter of Matteo’s flatmates but it too blends into the lazy, dozy state, distanced and familiar as that chatter has now become.

The first David notices that he must have fallen asleep again is the bright glare of sunlight seeping around the edges of the curtains. It’s harsh and shines directly into his eyes, making him squeeze them to keep them closed against the onslaught. Even with them closed, he can see an orange haze through his eyelids, a fiery reminder that it’s time to be up and about for the day. Evil, evil morning. He groans, stretching to try to shake himself into wakefulness and as a protest against the glare.

“Mmmmm,” Matteo mutters against his skin, lips skimming just over the pulse point at the base of David’s throat. It sucks the breath out of him, how trusting and intimate that gesture is.

David can feel those lips starting to quest, running up and along the underside of his jaw, sloppy and uncoordinated. As if Matteo, too, has his eyes closed against the dawning of the new day but can’t keep from trying to kiss anyway. David squints briefly downwards, unable to see much against the light but he can tell that Matteo is still half asleep, kissing as a sort of reflex action, eyes still fluttery as they struggle to open. It makes his own lips curl into a smile.

With a humming laugh, and with his lids newly screwed up against the brightness of the sunlight again, David tilts his chin down, tries to get his lips somewhere near where Matteo's might be. It results in a kiss to Matteo’s nose, then another on his chin when he jerks, startled by David’s reciprocation. They blindly press kisses as they quest to find each other’s lips. Noses, cheeks, an ear… by the time David manages to angle himself so that their lips are lined up, Matteo is chuckling and they’ve kissed most of each other’s faces.

“Morning,” Matteo mutters against David’s lips once they’ve finally connected, blissful, soft and quiet as he is obviously still not quite awake. His lips butterfly-light against David's, love and affections pouring out of them nevertheless.

His fingers come up to curl in David’s hair and run down along his face, keeping him firmly in place now that they’ve figured out where their lips need to be. Not that David minds. Mornings may be evil, but when they begin with kisses from Matteo, long, lazy and soporific when they’re both still not quite fully awake... Well, when they begin like that they’re actually pretty great.

“Morning,” David replies, pressing another kiss to those lips. With Matteo’s fingers still wound in his hair and the whole weekend ahead of them, David gives in to the day. It may still feel too early to be waking, but if this is what he gets when he does he doesn’t really mind that at all.


	3. Distract me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Supposed to fit in after the davenzi clip in the Abiball episode. However, I did exactly zero research on timelines so it may not line up exactly. If it doesn't quite work then we can just think of it as a little bit of an AU!

Matteo’s been hunched over his work for hours now, and part of David feels so damn proud because _he_ did that. He managed to tease Matteo into studying for this resit, despite Matteo's very clear desires to avoid it. This is what David wants, Matteo studying with purpose and actual concentration which suggests that he’s taking it all in this time. David wants this because it drives the fear away, the fear that Matteo really will still end up in school and David will have to face up to the world all on his own. Not that he’s scared, exactly, but this is a step he wants them to take together. A new lease on life he wants to do in partnership, as equals.

He watches Matteo, his lips twisting into a combination of fondness and agitation as he takes in the lines of Matteo's body, the growling mutters he makes. Because David genuinely wants Matteo to succeed, and knows that for all his bravado about being able to ace this resit that Matteo is actually insecure under it all. That’s the other half of why David had pushed him to do what he needed to, despite his actual desire to carry on lazily lying in bed, making out with his boyfriend and pretending the world has no place here. Matteo trying to avoid doing the work by brazening his way through is so ridiculously _him_ that it sometimes makes David roll his eyes with the predictability of it all. But David knows Matteo would have regretted it if he’d done no studying at all. He knows that somewhere inside, Matteo is worried that he won’t pass this time. It’s a feeling David knows well - the idea that if you don’t put effort in it won’t sting as much if you don’t succeed. That if you pull back and don’t try then it’s not some problem with you when something falls apart.

Right now, though, David sets that thought aside, along with the sketch book he’s been working on. It’s late, hours after the last time Matteo had attempted to escape from the desk. The day has worn away, night is settling in around them and Matteo is still at it. David hadn’t thought he’d ever get this far, his pouts and grumbles every so often suggesting that he’d have given up well before now, even with David hovering over him from time to time. 

Experimentally, David climbs out of the seat he’s spent most of the day in and stretches his back with a loud groan while watching Matteo intently. All that happens is that Matteo grunts irritably, his brow furrowing as he mutters something under his breath. His pen scratches on the paper and he lets out a huff of frustration, before scrubbing something out with strong dark lines and writing something different beside it.

Hopelessly endeared by the way Matteo seems to have settled so thoroughly into his work this time, David nevertheless wants to distract him. Studying is good, of course, but studying with no food (and incidentally with no attention on your boyfriend) for several hours is just… well, a bit unhealthy. That’s what he tells himself anyway. It’s not at all that he’s _needy_ or anything, or that he feels grumpy without Matteo’s attention. He just wants to help Matteo study more effectively, and taking breaks is scientifically proven to help. That’s all.

So he walks quietly over to Matteo and leans over him the way he has a few times this afternoon, when he wanted to be close to him even while wanting him to carry on with the Spanish work. Matteo doesn’t move, doesn’t even seem to notice that he’s there. Up close, David can see the dark smudges under his eyes and the slightly paler cast to his skin. It makes him more determined. Studying is good, yes, but not at the expense of a bit of balance. Not at the expense of well being.

So he presses a kiss to Matteo's neck, just under his ear, and lets his breath out in a little puff. Matteo shivers at the feel of it, and his lips curve up as his body tenses a little. But he ostentatiously keeps his focus on the paper in front of him, pen scribbling something incomprehensible after a very brief pause. Amused, because apparently it’s like that, a game of some sort now, David kisses him again, on his jaw, his hands coming down to rest on Matteo’s shoulders, just where his t-shirt exposes the soft skin of his neck. His thumbs rub small circles into the skin there in the way he knows Matteo likes. Matteo ignores him, so David kisses more.

“Go away, ‘m studying,” Matteo says finally, with a virtuous tilt of his head but there’s a twinkle in his eyes that suggests he’s not averse to this at all. 

“You need food,” David says, kissing his neck when he tilts his head up further to protest again. “You can take a break.”

Matteo’s skin prickles with small goosebumps under David’s lips, and Matteo sighs. David smiles, knowing he has this won. He kisses down Matteo’s neck, enjoying the way he moves his head to give him more space.

“Oh I can take a break can I? Mr ‘I don’t want you to fail’ is going to let me stop studying?”

He’s trying for sarcastic and irritated, but there’s a breathless note to his voice, which hitches at the last few syllables as David manages to hit a particularly sensitive spot. He grins, kisses the spot again.

“You’re basically studying anyway like this, isn’t that what you said?”

Laughing, Matteo throws his pen down, and turns, giving in to the inevitable. His fingers come up and tuck into David’s hair again, tangling around the strands and running them through his fingers the way he had earlier. It’s David’s turn to shiver at Matteo’s touch. Matteo pulls him down for another lingering kiss.

“I guess I can take a break,” he says, pulling David down so he’s sitting on his lap and they can kiss properly. His fingers slide in under David's shirt as their lips connect again. He was right earlier, he thinks. It is exciting, everything to do with them and what’s coming. But it’s just as exciting to be here and now helping Matteo take a well earned distraction.


	4. "I love you"

It’s warm, a lazy early Autumn afternoon. The sun has been hazy in the sky all afternoon but is starting to drop, slipping lower as a cloud drifts to cover it. Dozy with a post-swim stupor, Matteo lies with his head in David’s lap, his hair damp and a sheen of sweat on his exposed skin. The other boys are still in the pool, cavorting around. Their laughter booms out, breaking the peace, but David doesn’t care. He’s leaning up against the sun-warmed wall by the pool’s gates and he’s almost as dozy as Matteo is.

His fingers are wrapped around the strands of Matteo’s hair, stroking through the fine lengths absentmindedly. It’s something Matteo has always enjoyed, this feeling of hands in his hair, so it’s become something of a routine now. David will let his mind drift, while he curls his fingers around the strands, and Matteo will hum contentedly and resettle himself more comfortably against David. They do it so often that it’s second nature by now, a comforting familiarity wherever they are.

The others have given up teasing them for it by now, realising far too late that when the boys try to make fun of them, they only get spurred on to even more obvious acts of clingy togetherness. David’s at a point where he has no shame about it anymore, following Matteo in ever more obnoxious displays whenever the boys start in on them.

He sniggers softly, looking down at the boy in his arms. Matteo’s eyes are fluttering, and he’s obviously very close to sleep. In repose like this he looks innocent, angelic. The sun ginting on his skin and lighting every drop of water there just emphasises the impression, playing up the similarities between this boy and the soft cherubic angels that grace the many paintings he’s been forced to examine in his studies. Like them, Matteo’s beautiful like this, eyes closed, looking so soft and warm, long limbs splayed out as he hums his pleasure at the feeling of David’s touch. 

David is overwhelmed watching the emotions playing out over Matteo’s face. It’s so expressive, incapable of hiding even his smallest thought from David’s eyes. That every emotion when they’re lying like this is positive makes David’s heart swell with affection; it’s not been so long since Matteo used to try to hide his thoughts from others, and there are those who still never benefit from the honesty of his face. That he trusts David like this pulls his lips up into an involuntary smile as he watches. 

It’s the small moments like this that make David absolutely sure that he loves Matteo without a shadow of a doubt. Of course, the big moments mean a lot as well. When Matteo shouts his love in an echoing pool, when they spend their first night in their own place, when they take a road trip together, when they spend a day competing to make the most outrageous and sappily romantic declarations of love. Those things are all big, they stand like road markers on the journey through their lives.

But these moments, these small insignificant snatches of time, when they do what they always do. These moments which should by rights mean nothing at all. These moments are the ones that make David sure. The way he can feel those surges of love while he watches Matteo’s beautiful face flicker through all those expressions, veering from amusement to contentment, from vibrant interest in his surroundings to peaceful sleepiness.

A splash of water lands on his chest as he watches, his attention too far from the danger posed by the boys in the pool. Looking up he groans, hears a raucous cackling from the boys in the water.

“Sorry,” Jonas shouts, his hand held up in a plactory way. But the gleam in his eye and the gleeful expressions on the boys behind him bely his professed innocence. David scowls at them, and raises one finger in their direction. There’s a general hoot of derision from the water as they all turn away to resume their water wrestling.

David drops his gaze back to Matteo after the small intrusion, and finds him squinting up at him. There’s a disgruntled frown curling his lip up and his face is covered in newly shining drops glistening in the lowering sun. It’s screwed up both against the sun and the chill of the water that splashed onto them, and Matteo opens his mouth presumably to complain. He sits up, glaring at the pool and looks ready to jump in and attack someone, the movement pulling David’s fingers from his hair and leaving a wistful sense of loss in their wake.

“I love you,” David says, hears the reverence in his voice and smiles. It’s not intentional, he doesn’t mean to make a declaration but there’s something about Matteo’s face as it changed from the angelic peace of the languid, lazy, sleepy moments before to this grumpy, irritated Matteo who’s ready to fight someone. That something drags the words out of David against his will, but he feels lighter once he’s said them. As if the whole day had been waiting for this moment. He doesn’t say it all that often, preferring to show his love in other ways. But when he does say it, David loves the way it makes Matteo respond.

His face clears and softens, and the corners of his mouth twitch into a smile. He reaches out one hand to cup the back of David's head and pulls him down into a fleeting, delicate kiss. It lasts barely a second, but it’s enough to spread warmth through David, flooding from inside his chest out to every finger and toe. 

“I love you too,” Matteo says, quietly and just as reverently, before dropping his hand and settling back down onto David’s lap, his head once again a pleasant weight. David’s fingers find their way back into his hair, and Matteo lets out another contented hum. 

It’s the same as it was before, the lowering sun still warms the space, laying glowing golden highlights over Matteo’s face and the boys still yell in the background but there’s an added layer to the peace. Matteo’s hand is warm on David’s leg and he runs gentle circles on the skin there, grounding David in the moment. He leans back against the wall, closes his eyes and lets himself get lost in the moment again.


	5. Accidents happen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one somehow turned into a coffee shop au. I seem to have those on my brain lately - I may be working on a longer one as we speak (alongside others as well) so look out for more of this stuff.

David’s been working in this cafe for longer than he cares to admit. There’s something surely a little shameful in having worked somewhere like this for long enough to have become part of the furniture, with “Hi David” being most customers’ usual way of greeting him when they arrive. It’s the sort of job that’s supposed to be temporary, while you figure out what you really want to do, and yet David has taken root here.

Matteo, by contrast, only just started to work here a few weeks ago. He’s quiet, intense, filled with sly comments which generally fly under the radar of their much older workmates. He’s funny in a way that David usually finds obnoxious but which is disarming on him. His hair should irritate the hell out of David, as flighty and unruly as it is, and yet he finds himself wanting to feel it between his fingers. In short, David has acquired a hopeless crush and spends far too much of his time pining, his productivity taking a noticeable dive as soon as Matteo is on a shift with him.

Laura thinks it’s hilarious to tease him about it on the days she comes in to grab a drink and gossip over the counter with him. Today she’s perched at a tall seat on one end of the counter, and is watching him with a quirk to her brow which suggests that she’s going to give David hell as soon as they’re alone.

He avoids her for as long as he can, but eventually is forced to pass a cup over to her, and she grins. 

“You’re so obvious,” she says, nodding at Matteo, not even trying to be subtle.

David can feel his cheeks heating up and he quickly moves so he’s between her and Matteo and hopes like hell that he didn’t spot her obnoxious antics.

He can hear a slight cough behind him, and chances a look over his shoulder in Matteo’s direction. Before Matteo pulls his gaze away too quickly to be natural, David catches sight of his eyes, wide and curious as they flicker over him and Laura together.  _ Fuck. _ He must have heard her, then.

He turns back to Laura with a stiff and stilted smile plastered to his face for the benefit of a customer who just entered, bell tinkling as she makes her way up towards the counter.

“What do you think you’re doing?” David hisses as quietly as he can, hoping that Matteo can’t hear him, hoping that Laura will grow some sense of brotherly camaraderie and stop being her usual annoying self. “You’re embarrassing me.”

She grins back at him, unconcerned, and spins a little on her seat. “Just trying to help out.”

“Well, stop. It’s not helping.”

“You sure about that?”

She’s looking over his shoulder and one finger is pointing at something behind his head, but David doesn’t want to give her the satisfaction of looking where she’s pointing. He can imagine the sight he’ll see anyway. Matteo with his hair wild and free around his head, smiling at some lucky customer, possibly saying something snarky and funny to another coworker, who won’t get it while assuming Matteo is being straight with them. David doesn’t have to see any of it to know; it’s been like that too many times to count. David has it memorised, the way Matteo operates.

Laura rolls her eyes and huffs her irritation. “Hopeless,” she mutters under her breath, before she hops down off her seat and pats his arm in amused condescension as she gathers her things, ready to leave. “Try to get over yourself, okay? This is painful to watch.”

She slips down to the other end of the counter where Matteo is working, and David watches her with an anxious  _ something _ twisting into his belly, wondering what on earth she’s up to. She leans over the counter and pats Matteo’s arm too before swiping a small bag with some slice in it off the counter. David’s too far away to hear what she says, but he does see the rosy blush that rises into Matteo’s cheeks and the hasty glance he sends David's way.

Internally he curses his interfering sister, but outwardly he just smiles, hopes he’s not looking too much like a fool. Hopes Matteo doesn’t figure out why he’s such a useless mess whenever they work together.

He ducks out from behind the counter and grabs Laura’s arm before she gets out of the room.

“What did you say?” he hisses, his eyes drifting towards Matteo, who’s now standing behind the counter, with a small smile on his face as he watches them.

“Not much,” she says, with a cheeky grin. “Just wished him well in the new job, told him how well it’s going. You know the sort of thing.”

David narrows his eyes, sure that she’s not telling the entire truth. There was too much in the way they were acting for it to be that simple. Still he knows his sister well enough to know she’s not going to tell him anything else. So he lets her go with a grimace and turns back to his work.

“Sorry about my sister,” he says when he gets back to Matteo. “She likes to get a bit too involved in people’s lives.”

Matteo’s eyes are bright with his amusement as he shakes his head. “It’s fine. She seems nice.”

“It’s all an act,” David says. “She’s actually evil incarnate and can’t stop meddling in my life.” He looks over at the door thoughtfully. “Maybe we can ban her from the premises.”

Matteo laughs again, working the machine with a practised movement which suggests he’s been doing this much longer than a few weeks. David’s fascinated by him, wishes he could do something about his stupid crush to find out if it could maybe get them somewhere, but there never seems to be any opportunity.  _ You could make an opportunity, _ his brain suggests helpfully, but he always shakes it off in irritation. Any circumstance which might present an opportunity is too public for David to take the risk. 

The job may be supposed to be temporary, but David likes it here, enjoys his coworkers and his boss isn’t entirely an asshole. He’s not willing to jeopardise all of that just because he’d love to kiss a boy. A boy who quite probably doesn’t even want to be kissed.

Sure, his eyes linger on David’s sometimes and sure he laughs at all of David’s jokes, even the stupidest ones. And sure he’s managed, even in the short time he’s been here, to come out to everyone as gay. So sure, there’s technically a chance that Matteo might not object to kissing. But David’s not sure enough to risk everything on it.

And yeah occasionally Matteo’s laugh makes David feel reckless and willing to sound him out somehow, like right now. But a sensible, thankfully practical part of David always manages to reel him back in and stop anything that his adventurous, reckless side might try to do.

So he just grins back at Matteo and turns to the next customer in the line, putting on his best service smile and falling into the natural rhythms of the work.

Hours later, as they wipe everything down and get ready to leave for the day, David's still musing over what Laura might have told Matteo.  _ He’s _ been… different. Somehow. His eyes have been brighter, his gaze has lingered on David's much more often than usual. And his smile has hovered much more obviously around his lips whenever David looks his way. None of it looks purposeful exactly, but it’s definitely been eating away at David’s resolve.

He shuffles out to the back room, checking carefully on their stores to make sure everything balances. The one thing his boss is an absolute stickler on it’s their balance sheets. Everything from money to bags of coffee beans is carefully itemised and the last job of each shift is to record all the details in a very old fashioned ledger book.

It’s a little soothing in some ways, and there’s a warm sense of satisfaction when it all adds up. Both in terms of enjoying having everything go right, but also in the personal sense of accomplishment, that he’s managed to keep track of everything even on a busy day.

David turns quickly, when he’s done, reaching to turn off the light. He’s not looking, every movement seared into his muscle memory, so he’s startled when his fingers brush over someone else’s. He looks up, right into a pair of very blue eyes that look just as startled as he feels.

“Sorry,” Matteo mutters as he pulls his fingers away, a blush rising onto his cheeks and looking the most ill at ease David has ever seen him. Their faces are so close that he can count all the individual strands of Matteo’s lashes. He blinks at the thought and shakes his head to push it away.

Because Matteo is turning to move away just as David’s head is shaking, and their heads are far too close, their lips brush, just the corners and they could easily laugh it off. It’s not a kiss, not intentionally, and yet it’s enough to make David suck in a breath. His eyes flicker up to take in Matteo’s and there’s something there that pushes the reckless side of him into action. Something that thinks Laura is probably right and he should just 'get over' himself.

He huffs a tiny laugh, lets his fingers drop from the light switch to cup the back of Matteo’s head and pulls him into a real kiss. There’s a small moment of terror before Matteo kisses back, his hands resting on David’s upper arms and his breath warm when they part for a moment.

“Finally,” Matteo whispers against his lips before they’re diving back in. David kisses and kisses, letting all the pent up desire to do this out through his fingers and his lips. If the way Matteo is kissing back, he feels the same. This has really gone on too long, this dance they've been doing. So the relief that an accident has pushed them onto the same page is immense. If ironic.

“Finally,” David agrees when they take another moment, paused with their foreheads touching and their breaths still mingling.

“So,” Matteo says, biting his lip in the way he has that has always driven David to distraction with the desire to kiss any sting caused by the biting away, “we should… go out somewhere. Sometime.”

Nodding, his fingers tracing the curve of Matteo’s head, down along his ear to slip down his throat, feeling the intake of breath when he skims over a sensitive spot, David laughs.

“Or we could just stay here. For a bit.”

He lets his fingers slide up to press over Matteo's lips again, suggesting what they could do while remaining here. Rolling his eyes, Matteo laughs too. “It’s not exactly comfortable,” he points out. But his own fingers are now in David's hair, curling up at the base of his neck and sending shivers right through him. 

"It's not," David agrees, his hands now cupping Matteo's face, unwilling to let go even to get somewhere better for this sort of activity. 

They’re not going anywhere for a while and they both know it. Matteo presses in again, this kiss small and perfect. “Okay,” he says. “You win. We can stay here for a little while.”


End file.
